Emma Gilchrist, DeSmog Blog, 25 July 2017
Malaysia’s Petronas has cancelled plans to build the Pacific NorthWest LNG plant on Lelu Island near Prince Rupert, B.C., in a move seen as a major setback for B.C.'s LNG dreams and as a major win for those concerned about climate change and salmon habitat.

The project would have involved increased natural gas production in B.C.’s Montney Basin, a new 900-kilometre pipeline and the export terminal itself.

Here’s what you need to know about Tuesday’s announcement.1) Why did Petronas decide to cancel the project?

In a press statement about the investment decision, Petronas cited “changes in market conditions.”

“We are disappointed that the extremely challenging environment brought about by the prolonged depressed prices and shifts in the energy i…

[The fun has already begun between Weaver and Horgan! "I hope the change in language... isn't indicative of a change in the NDP's position on this project." In reading this article I noticed that I'm in the third photo (protesters at City Hall, Nov 2016); near the centre, the fellow with the sunglasses and the glum look on his face! LOL *RON*]

[Makes sense. The post-Boomer population is substantially smaller in number, so demand (and therefore prices) will drop. But it's a long-term problem. *RON*]Daniel Tencer, Huffington Post, 26 July 2017
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. is once again warning of "strong evidence of problematic conditions" in Canadian housing.

That's not new — we've heard plenty of warnings about overvaluation in Toronto and Vancouver, and overbuilding in some Prairie cities.

But this time, the mortgage insurer has flagged a different issue: The population of young first-time homebuyers isn't growing as quickly as it used to.
"In the first quarter of this year, Canada saw a positive, yet slow growth in the young adult population and a drop in disposable income in all regions except British Columbia," CMHC's chief economist, Bob Dougan, said in its latest housing market assessment on Wednesday.

[Some good ideas here. There's no shortage of problems for a public consultation on electoral issues to consider. *RON*]Dermod Travis, Huffington Post, 26 July 2017
Houston, we have a consensus. Well, almost.

All three parties in the B.C. legislature now support a ban on corporate and union donations, as well as setting a cap on personal contributions.

It's that last one that gets tricky. What's the right cap?

Perhaps B.C.'s new government should rip a page out of the Alberta NDP playbook: Legislate all points of agreement this fall and set a personal cap that's painful for the parties, with an agreement that it will be revisited following a public consultation on a host of related electoral issues.

It would be a mistake to set a permanent cap right out of the gate, based solely on B.C.'s past fundraising results.
The province's Wild West political culture has left a distorted reality of donations and party spending, espe…

[James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen use a novel defense in court: they only gave the agency the tools to abuse detainees, they didn’t do it themselves. Idiotic at best, but bear in mind that these are professional psychologists speaking! I wonder what the American Psychological Association has to say about this? *RON*]

Usually, and for understandable reasons, the CIA frowns on people comparing it to Nazis, whether the insult comes from random trolls or the president of the United States. Rarer still are Nazi comparisons coming from the CIA’s own contractors.

Vanishingly, once-in-a-lifetime, Halley’s Comet-rare are the times when those CIA contractors will not only compare the agency to Nazis, but themselves to the manufacturers of poison gas used in the Holocaust—and do it in their own defense.

As contractor psychologists for the agency, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen played an integral role in designin…